Bear Heart's Captive

Chapter 5: Ceremony for the Pipe

I tried to be in a better mood for our sight-seeing plans. We saw a tree, a tractor, and I think a couple cows. Needless to say, by the time we had to turn back to the school, I was spent.

Adam's advice stole over me while I was busy thinking about why Caleb had turned out to be such a jerk. You'll see how it made you better. There was a piece of me missing now that I had to recreate (or forgive its absence) because even if he tried, Caleb couldn't give it back. It had turned to ash in his hands the day he skipped off with Carly Ferguson and left me in the dark to figure out where the hell we went wrong.

I certainly knew now.

Caleb had grown about a foot in the last year, lost his acne, and filled out. Not to mention his thick, surfer blonde hair and those sea blue eyes. He'd gone from an insecure sweetheart to a handsome narcissist and, suddenly, I wasn't good enough for him anymore. Well, fine! Good riddance, I thought. He was going to have a hard time finding another girl who loved him more than he loved himself because I wasn't going to do it anymore.

I had to forget about him. Today, I was going to force myself to be in a good mood even if it killed me. Nothing was going to stop me from forcing myself to be happy. Nothing!

Well, except maybe my mother rehearsing her speech on the drive to the school. It was going to be hard, but I wasn't going to let even that bother me now. If I was going to secretly become a nicer person to my family, this would have to be overlooked. The scary part of this "little" speech, though, was that other people were actually going to hear it, and when Mom digressed to ramble on about her troubled childhood, I knew God was testing me.

Patience, Charli.

"Oh! We're here already!" I exclaimed, eager to spare myself the monologue Mom intended to share with the unfortunate and unsuspecting Sioux at the ceremony.

The air whispered at me, its foreign tongue hissing in my ear. This time, it seemed to have taken a subtle liking to me, and I felt less hesitant about being dragged to the emptiness of this peaceful place.

Rowan met us at the front of the school and led us to a conference room where a handful of people were talking. He introduced us to a leathery-faced old man called Raven Sky, the medicine man of their community. Raven Sky wore his soot gray hair in two loose braids that fell over the shoulders of his beaded tunic. Crow's feet were the most predominant trails on his well-worn skin, which led me to believe he laughed a lot. He would be performing the ceremony that would cleanse the pipe and show gratitude to our family for bringing it back. Rowan helped arrange collapsible chairs as Raven Sky continued to explain the breakdown of events in the last few minutes before more people trickled into the conference room.

It wasn't long before every seat was filled with rows of dark eyes watching us stand beside the podium. I could see my dad begin to fidget with his shirtsleeves. He hated standing in front of an audience. Even if all we had to do was stand there while the medicine man spoke words we couldn't understand, my dad was still nervous.

For the first time, I actually understood what Erin had said to me before I left, and I welcomed the prideful feeling. Raven Sky's beautiful voice filled the room with its warm, deep body as he held the sacred pipe in each hand and clouded the air with thick incense. He took an eagle feather and brushed it over every member of our family, chanting throughout the ritual. When he was done and the ceremony completed, I knew, one day, the painful time of losing my boyfriend would be overshadowed by the memory of bringing a peace pipe back to its people over a century after it was stolen.

Then Mom gave her speech. It wasn't half bad.

Adam was the first to check out the banquet table after the event, and while he devoured a plate of chips, I examined the pictures on the walls. Most of them were of Sitting Bull. From reading the tag beside the picture I learned he was an infamous medicine man who had defeated General Custard at the Battle of the Little Big Horn with an army he'd formed of independent plains tribes.